The Economy of Tea

I wrote some times ago a post about how sometimes tea people were wrongly perceived as being old grannies drinking their tea at 5 o’clock. I “just” found now about another cliché but a more positive one. To be more precise, it just came to my mind but I am sure it has been playing around for quite some time now.

This one comes from TV shows where most people drink coffee and enjoy it really, really much. You want a proof? Just think of Gibb’s rule number 23: “Never mess with a Marine’s coffee if you want to live.”

For those who might not know who the guy pictured just above is, he is a Special Agent and a team leader working for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service or NCIS in the show of the same name.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember this one but knowing how much Leroy Jethro Gibbs liked drinking coffee and creating rules, I had no doubt that I was going to find one.

But let’s get back on topic. As I said, in TV shows, most people drink coffee. But what about those who drink tea? First of all, is there anyone drinking tea in these shows?

I thought about different shows I saw and found quite a few people drinking tea on a regular basis and enjoying it.

Who? All the guys below.

To name them for those who are probably not always in front of television screens (after all, we all have a real life going on somewhere), you have Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Patrick Jane and Gabriel “Sylar” Gray.

What can we learn from this panel?

First, tea drinking is not limited to a specific genre as we have sci-fi, polar, super-heroes. Obviously, it would be strange to see tea in a Western or in a Middle Age show but apart from that, there is no specificity.

Second, tea is not necessarily for the good guys or the gentle ones: Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, Gabriel “Sylar” Gray is one of the main antagonists (I never watched Heroes but from what I read, he became a good guy later on) and the three others are “good” guys but can be ruthless when the need arises (going really, really far and crossing the border between good and evil).

Third, tea is not for British only as only Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty are and the others are American or French.

However, there are a couple of things they all have in common. I could start with a certain style or desire to be stylish, be it in their schemes, plans or by the way they look and dress.

All these characters are also quite intelligent and in a way more intellectual than the other characters, with an interest on analysing things and solving problems.

All these little hints give us a portrait of the tea drinker as seen by the people behind TV shows and this portrait is another cliché but a much more appealing one than the one I began this post with.

However, this is just another stereotype of what a tea drinker should be but I don’t believe it is what tea drinkers are and how they are.

In order to help me prove myself wrong, could you post here any other tea drinker in TV shows that doesn’t follow one of these two stereotypes?